When Warren Doty first moved the Vineyard in the late 1970s, the Menemsha harborfront was booming.
“Then there were five boats landing 10,000 pounds of sea scallops every three days,” he recalled. “There was a work force of ten shuckers in three different shucking shacks. That’s 30 Islanders working on the docks with about fifteen on boats. The season lasted from October to April every year. There were 45 to 50 jobs in Menemsha for six to eight months during the season.
More than 15 years ago, Brian Braginton-Smith of West Yarmouth came forward with an idea to meld wind power and aquaculture in what he envisioned as an “ocean ranch.”
Mr. Braginton-Smith’s proposal was the seed for what became the controversial proposal by Cape Wind Associates to place 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal south of Cape Cod.
The visionary now has separated himself from Cape Wind, saying he is concerned about the impact such a project would have on what he sees as an environmentally fragile fishing ground.
For Rick Karney, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, 2008 is becoming the Year of the Blue Mussel.
In recent weeks, Mr. Karney’s group has received positive news about the prospects of raising blue mussels in local waters.
While the Island group already raises juvenile bay scallops, quahaugs and oysters for participating towns on a regular basis, the organization also is participating in a blue-mussel experiment that could expand aquaculture to the open water.
On this November morning, the Menemsha lobster boat Shearwater has made its way three and a half miles south of Noman’s Land.
Noman’s tall cliffs rise above the treacherous rocky waters. Sea birds are adrift in the moving current farther north.
Waves roll from the open ocean and raise and lower the boat in a gentle fashion, like a mother rocking a sleeping child. The sky is blue and metallic; the color of the sea beneath is a darker version of the sky. A gentle cold breeze freshens. The bow points towards Spain.
Island fish, like Island tourists, come and go with the seasons. Striped bass, bluefish, false albacore, bonito and scup and summer flounder all migrate.
Yet there is one species of fish that once were caught here year-round. Winter flounder stayed in Island waters through the changing seasons.
Next week the Chilmark Public Library is hosting a forum with a top New England authority on the raising of juvenile winter flounder.
As the Chilmark shellfish department wraps up its first summer, efforts at spearheading restoration projects have been successful. Selectman Warren Doty, chairman of the board and liaison to the department, reported a low mortality rate among planted scallops and a very high production rate.
“It has been a very successful season,” he said.
To date, 100,000 scallop seed have been set to grow in an upweller, purchased by the town this spring and located in Menemsha, as well as in spat bags and pearl nets.
